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Statement by Congressman Brian Higgins on American Military Intervention in Syria

Sep 3, 2013

Press Release

“The brutalization of the Syrian people by their own government, including by the use of chemical weapons, is heartbreaking and barbaric. The larger conflict remains an ethnic and sectarian conflict that America cannot solve. This is not a fight for freedom and democracy. Rather, this is about raw power; a fight for control between a brutal and murderous dictator and an opposition represented by al Qaeda affiliates and Islamic extremists. The lesson in Syria, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the people of those countries have to solve their own internal conflicts, and military action on the part of the United States can very easily escalate, drawing us deeper into what is, at its core, a Syrian civil war. After 6,668 American troop deaths and tens of thousands of American wounded, after spending $2 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan representing $40,000 in debt for every American family, now is the time to nation-build in America and invest in the growth of the American economy. It is not the time for Americans to be subjected to the potential of yet another unwinnable overseas war.”